Thousands of Palestinians marched Wednesday in the funeral of the 4-year-old child Yasser Abu Abed who succumbed to his wounds after being shot last week by Israeli soldiers east of Khan Younis to the south of Gaza Strip.

The funeral procession kicked off from his family house towards the local cemetery.

Abu Abed died of injuries he sustained last Friday during the Great March of Return protests staged at the Gaza border.

According to data by the Health Ministry, more than 220 Palestinians, including 34 children and five women and girls, were killed and 24,000 others left injured since March 30 in Israeli attacks on peaceful protesters at the Gaza border.

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a bill that would target for sanctions Hamas resistance movement and Hezbollah over allegations of using civilians as human shields, guaranteeing that it will become law, JTA reported.

The bill describes Hamas and Hezbollah groups as “repeated” practitioners of an action that violates international law, claiming that Hamas routinely launches missiles at Israel from densely populated areas.

The US Senate unanimously passed the bipartisan bill in October.

The bill was authored by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN) and was co-sponsored by 50 other senators. It was first introduced this past summer.

“This critical and timely legislation mandates new sanctions against Hamas, Hezbollah and foreign state agencies that use civilians as human shields or provide support to those doing so,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said in a statement Tuesday after the House passed the bill, which now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature.

Last February, the House of Representatives unanimously passed the Hamas Human Shields Prevention Act which condemns Hamas for the alleged use of civilians, including children, as human shields, sanctioning those who use them.

The act, however, emphasizes the efforts made by the Israeli occupation military to avoid civilian casualties, a claim that analysts said amounts to an attempt to whitewash Israeli crimes and terrorism against Palestinian civilians and unarmed protesters, including on the Gaza border.

A four-year-old Palestinian toddler who was injured on Friday during the Great March of Return protests staged at the Gaza border succumbed on Tuesday evening to wounds inflicted by Israeli bullet fire.

The Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidrah said Ahmad Abu Abed, aged four years and eight months, was seriously injured when soldiers stationed on the Israeli side of the southern border with Gaza opened fire at protesters in the Khan Younis area.

Ahmad breathed his last on Tuesday as a result of the serious injuries inflicted on his vulnerable body. video

According to data by the Health Ministry, 220 Palestinians, including 34 children and five women and girls, were killed and 24,000 others left injured since March 30 in Israeli attacks on peaceful protesters at the Gaza border.

The Palestinian Health Ministry has confirmed that a child died, Tuesday, from serious wounds he suffered, last Friday, after Israeli soldiers shot him, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

The Health Ministry said the soldiers shot the child, Ahmad Yasser Sabri Abu ‘Aabed, 4, with expanding bullets, one in his eye, and one in his abdomen, causing very serious wounds.

The child was rushed to a hospital in Khan Younis, underwent a surgery, and remained in a critical condition at the Intensive Care Unit, until he succumbed to his wounds.

On the 70th anniversary of UN resolution 194, the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) issued a new report entitled "Voices of Return: Documenting Israel's Repression of the Great March of Return."

The new report is based on a PRC submission to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 protests that began on March 30th in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip. The series of demonstrations named the “Great March of Return” called on Israel to end the ongoing siege and implement the refugees’ collective right of return to the lands from which they were displaced in 1948.

The demonstrations have been widely covered in the mainstream media, in particular around May 14th, when the Israeli military killed 52 Palestinians and injured over 2,400 in one single day. Yet, beneath the headlines and numbers of casualties, detailed witness accounts of the events remain underreported. PRC’s investigation seeks to fill this gap by bringing to light the voices of Palestinian protesters and victims injured during the demonstrations.

The testimonies and other information gathered in the report show in detail how Israeli soldiers shot unarmed protesters, bystanders, journalists and medical staff approximately 100-400m from the fence, constituting extrajudicial executions and deliberate maiming of civilians. Prima facie evidence and testimonies show that none of the Palestinians victim included in this report were endangering Israeli forces, who remained located on the other side of the fence.

PRC interviewed two journalists who were both shot in their legs while wearing a "press" vest. Khalil was shot in the upper left thigh while standing approximately 200 meters away from the fence and was wounded while taking a "selfie" with friends. Khalil said that the Israeli military shot him from the back as he was not facing the barrier separating the Gaza Strip from Israel.

The other journalist interviewed, Duaa, was hit by a sniper shot as she was filming another protester being treated by paramedics after being injured. Both journalists were hit with a particular type of bullet, which expands and mushrooms inside the body, that indicates the military's intention to cause maximum harm and greater possibility to inflict life-changing injuries.

Amnesty International has reported Israel's use of US-manufactured M24 Remington sniper rifles shooting 7.62mm hunting ammunition, which have the "mushrooming" effects described by the victims we interviewed.

Jihad, a young Palestinian woman in her twenties was standing on Jakar street, a road roughly parallel to the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel, at approximately 100 meters from the barrier when she was first hit with hunting ammunition in her left leg below the knee. Jihad was further hit two times, in her right hand and shoulder, with regular bullets by gunshots seemingly targeting the medical staff that was attending to her.

PRC interviewed a child that lost a leg after being targeted for merely raising the Palestinian flag during one of the demonstrations. Muhannad was also tending to a fellow protester injured at the time he was shot. He was hit with hunting ammunition above the knee in the thigh which caused him to undergo arterial amputation.

"The bullet came in from my ear and out from my head." said Adelmalek, an 18-year old who was shot while standing 300 meters from the fence near the Awda refugee camp, east of Jabalia.

Another young Palestinian, Ouni, was hopeful that the peaceful demonstration will be effective as he explained "We wanted to push for lifting the siege, unblock border crossings . . . we simply wanted to live a normal life!" He was also shot with hunting ammunition that caused bone fragmentation in his leg.

Contrary to claims of Israeli authorities, a grassroots network of activists led the creation and organization of this series of mass demonstrations. The report argues that driving the open-fire policy of the Israeli government against protesters is a longstanding criminalization of Palestinian refugees attempting to cross the armistice lines. Palestinian refugees are criminalized by the Israeli state and media as "infiltrators" and prevented to return to the lands from which they were displaced through a series of state laws and policies.

PRC concluded that the Israeli army's response to Palestinians protesting against a colonial siege along the 1949 armistice line clearly violates a number of core principles of international humanitarian law. The killing and maiming of protesters, journalists, paramedics and children not engaged in any military activity amounts to a violation of the international legal principles of distinction, proportionality and of precautions in attack.

(photo: Palestinians search through the rubble of their destroyed homes hit by Israeli strikes in the northern Gaza Strip in August 2014. UN Photo/Shareef Sarhan)

Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel has submitted a report on the lack of Israeli domestic accountability mechanisms to UN Independent Commission of Inquiry examining 2018 protests in the Gaza Strip.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced, late Wednesday, that significant progress has been made on the preliminary examination into Israeli military actions in the 2014 war and 2018 protests in the Gaza Strip.

In a report just submitted to the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 Protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (COI), Adalah highlighted Israel’s inaction and persistent unwillingness to conduct genuine investigations into grave incidents of suspected war crimes against unarmed Palestinian civilians in both 2014 and 2018.

In its 25-page report filed on 21 November 2018, Adalah concludes that Israel’s persistent unwillingness to conduct genuine investigations or to initiate prosecutions relating to the 2014 Gaza war stresses the need for international intervention to provide remedies and accountability for Palestinian victims of the 2018 protests.

The report analyzes key recommendations and other findings made by three Israeli domestic bodies, the Turkel Commission (2013), the Ciechanover Team (2015), and the State Comptroller’s Office (2018). These bodies have consecutively reviewed and produced findings about the state’s investigatory mechanisms, and all of them identified multiple grave flaws within that system. Although the reports’ recommendations fell short of the requirements of international law, they nevertheless remain unimplemented by the Israeli government.

Adalah’s report follows an initial report to the COI concerning the legal work undertaken by Adalah and Al Mezan from 30 March until the end of May 2018. Adalah’s representatives subsequently met with the members of the commission and investigators to discuss Adalah’s findings and conclusions regarding the lack of Israeli domestic accountability mechanisms for Palestinians in Gaza.

WHAT’S IN ADALAH’S REPORT?

Adalah’s report reviews Israel’s failed policies, practices and investigatory mechanisms in relation to the actions of its military in the 2014 war. According to official UN reports, Israeli troops killed 2,251 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom were civilians, including 299 women and 551 children, and destroyed 18,000 homes and other civilian property, including hospitals and vital infrastructure.

Adalah believes that information on the 2014 war is crucial to the COI in fulfilling its mandate relating to the 2018 protests “to make recommendations, in particular on accountability measures, all with a view to avoiding and ending impunity and ensuring legal accountability, including individual criminal and command responsibility, for such violations and abuses, and on protecting civilians against any further assaults.”

The lack of a sound and functional domestic investigatory system in Israel upholds the culture of impunity that permeates all echelons of Israel’s military and civilian apparatus that determines policy and conduct towards Gaza.

Adalah and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights filed complaints into 28 cases of suspected international humanitarian law violations – including war crimes – committed by the Israeli military in 2014. To date, only three investigations have been opened; of these, two have since been closed and one remains pending. Adalah received no response in five cases; 13 cases were closed without the opening of an investigation, and six are allegedly still under examination. All of these cases involve the killings of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, and extensive damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure. No indictments have been issued in any of the cases.

WHAT ARE ADALAH’S CONCLUSIONS?

Israel’s system of investigating suspected international law violations by its military is unfit for purpose and falls far short of compliance with international standards of independence, impartiality, effectiveness, promptness and transparency;

The chronic failings of its investigatory system allows illegal conduct by Israeli military personnel to continue with a wide margin of impunity;

For six years, Israeli domestic bodies have issued reports and recommendations for improvements to the investigatory system, all of which have both fallen short of the requirements international law, and remain ink on paper, in what appears to be an empty exercise designed to present a facade of action and good intentions;

According to Israeli official data, over 91% of the “exceptional incidents” received by Israel’s Military Advocate General involving alleged IHL violations in Gaza in 2014 have not been investigated, and no commander or soldier was prosecuted for grave violations of IHL;

Thus, Article 17 of the Rome Statute may give authority to the ICC to open investigations into these matters, in fulfillment of the principle of complementarity.

The ongoing situation of inaction at the domestic level and the demonstrated, persistent unwillingness of Israel to conduct genuine investigations or to initiate prosecutions create a pressing need for international actors to step in to provide remedies and accountability for Palestinian victims of the 2018 protests.

A number of Palestinians were injured with live Israeli fire as Israeli forces suppressed the 19th weekly naval march in the northern besieged Gaza Strip, on Monday afternoon.

Palestinian Health Ministry affirmed that 11 protesters were injured during the Israeli attack.

The attack was carried out when thousands of Palestinian protesters gathered at the northern borders of the Gaza Strip to take part in protests in an attempt to break the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.

Some 20 boats arrived to the northern border to participate in the 19th naval march.

However, Israeli war boats opened live fire and tear-gas bombs at the protesters, PIC reporter said.

Commenting on the attack, Ahmed al-Mudalal, member of the National Committee for Breaking the Siege, which organized the naval march, said the naval marches will not be stopped until its goals are achieved, referring to breaking the Israeli siege and allowing Palestinians the right of return as refugees to their original homelands.

The Gaza Strip has been under an inhumane Israeli siege since 2007 and witnessed three wars since 2008. The blockade has caused a decline in living standards as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and poverty.

Tensions have been running high near the border fence since March 30, which marked the start of a series of protests dubbed “The Great March of Return.”

The deadly clashes in Gaza reached their peak on May 14, the eve of the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day, or Day of Catastrophe, which coincided this year with Washington's relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem.

More than 220 Palestinians have so far been killed and over 22,000 others wounded in the renewed Gaza clashes, according to the latest figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry.

A former director of Shin Bet internal security service and Minister of Internal Security, Dichter said that the Israeli army is prepared to use all means, including lethal force to deter the Palestinians protesters.

Since March 31, thousands of peaceful Palestinian protesters have been staging protests along the eastern fence of the Gaza Strip, calling for lifting the 12-year-old Israeli siege and reinforcing the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan repeatedly referred to the protesters killed in Gaza as “Nazis,” saying that there were no demonstrations, just “Nazi anger.”

He later added, according to Days of Palestine: “The number [of peaceful Palestinian protesters] killed does not mean anything because they are just Nazis, anyhow.”